Sid Meier's Pirates!

 Wii, Sid Meier's Pirates! (2010) game

The original on the Amiga somehow passed me by - I didn't like strategy games at first, your 'Settlers,' 'X-Com' or 'Dune II,' but after spending enough time with them I came to love these games as favourites of the machine (and in gaming generally), but for some reason, maybe a suspicion of too much disk-swapping, perhaps a perceived lack of variety, it could have been I didn't have my own copy, I don't know, I never actually played 'Pirates!' and as a result it both retained some vague draw, of the exotic and unknown category, and a seed of interest that eventually grew into getting a copy for the Wii thinking it would be a far more advanced version. As it turned out I was to be rather disappointed, and I'm sure they were going for a strong nostalgia factor for those who'd loved the original back in the 90s (or was it late-80s?), because this was almost an exact copy in gameplay terms. There is the obvious addition of motion sensitive gameplay (though this is few and far between, limited to the dancing and fighting minigames, most of the game controlled from the D-pad), and a fairly pointless collectable accoutrements section that allows you to dress your pirate up in all manner of clothing like a Ken doll (which may have been part of the original anyway), but it's pretty pointless other than for the joy of customisation and putting your mark on your character. In every other respect it's the same gameplay. Though I never played it I somehow gained the knowledge of what the game entailed, and also heard firsthand in the now from one who had played it, but even if I knew nothing about this version, it's archaic systems and rigid gameplay would have tipped me off that it hadn't moved on in the two decades since!

The graphics are far more detailed, 3D and lushly colourful, and I will say that playing it in a heatwave with a fan blowing at me and my wooden door creaking in the background of air pressure gave me an almost 4D-enhanced experience of sailing the high seas at times, but overwhelmingly my impression was one of trudging through thick mud to get to something shiny, then turning round and doing it all again. Over and over again. It may be that this was a realistic depiction of piratical life: slow, tiresome, punctuated by occasional moments of excitement, delight and success, but it really did feel as if I was at sea on long voyages the way travel was so laborious. It could be painfully slow, especially when you're going against the wind (yes, I know all about tacking), inching forward while days are passing in-game and your character is literally ageing in the meantime! And then whenever you do reach port half the time was spent waiting for loading screens to the extent I didn't know which was slower: the sailing or being a landlubber! It didn't help, nor put me in the best frame of the mind that the Wii booklet was so slim and uninformative, telling you to download the full manual online. Fine, but when I did download the manual for the Wii version it was the same as the paper copy! Admittedly much time has passed and there were other versions I could have used, but it put me off trying to search out the proper manual and consequently I had to work things out for myself.

All well and good, sometimes it's ideal to approach a game that way, and the loading screens were at least full of helpful hints for the gameplay. At the same time there were key points it took me a long while to work out, and one or two I never did (such as how to attack a port - I assume you have to be at war with that nation, presumably by attacking enough of their ships...), and I felt on the whole there was no reason to have made the game anything other than a series of menu screens (and the fact that every different screen is accompanied by loading times didn't inspire confidence), everything else was mere bonus trappings - if we're talking Amiga games one aspect made me think of a specific genre of that era in style and relevance: the Don Bluth titles, specifically 'Dragon's Lair' and 'Space Ace' which were amazingly like being in a cartoon at the time, but could only achieve such heretofore unattainable graphical prowess at the expense of actual gameplay where it was merely a case of timing button presses to advance, a memory and reaction game, basically. The duelling brought this to mind very strongly since it's all about timing and the fancy graphics (not all that fancy now), were mere window dressing. I couldn't get a handle on them at first (nor the dancing), yet another game affected detrimentally by Wii controls not precise enough for purpose, so you're left uncertain if it's your own timing at fault or the sensors themselves (then there's the issue of 'A' being so close to the D-pad it's easy to roll down onto it and select an option by mistake). As time drew on and I was able to collect items that improved my skill in such areas and gradually made my way up the ranks of each country, the game opened up and I started to enjoy it instead of bumbling around. For a time I even considered it a 3-star game, though even then I'd have felt generous awarding it that. As it turned out, one last sting in the tail dropped the experience back down to my initial impressions.

There was certainly plenty to do, searching for lost cities, romancing governor's daughters, collecting, trading, ship battles, hunting for your kidnapped relatives, tracking down treasure and dealing with the pirates that put it there... And once I understood the landscape of this 'World' map and where to go for this or that, it's quite satisfying ticking things off lists, achievements being a modern addition I assume, that at least gives you more reason to keep playing, but eventually pales as you find yourself having to run the length of the ocean to catch up with your nemesis (or nemeses' since there's more than one!). But it was in the final battle against Montalban, the man who stole away your childhood by taking your family, my negative impression was sealed. The 'story' such as it was, at first appeared to be something more than I was expecting, and I assumed this wouldn't have been part of the original game and would be a far more developed part of the experience than it turned out to be - it was in the original and there isn't really any story other than giving you more of an impetus to explore and goals to aim for. But back to that final sword fight: to get to it you have to blast his secret city base, an on-rails 'light gun' shooting section, fun the first few times, but when it takes a couple of minutes to get through and at the end of it Montalban chops you to pieces in a few hits then it's one of those most ancient gaming headaches of the kind found in so many platform games and the like which is more trial than challenge.

It took me hours of repetitive, trying attempts, and I seemed to make no progress: I might get a strike in on him, only for the favour to be returned immediately, and defence moves seemed no avail as he'd simply recover faster. I actually did feel like I was starting to get RSI from the repetition of the two sequences, aiming and shooting my ship's cannons, then sword-fighting, and I got to the stage where I contemplated the shame of potentially having to give it up - perhaps at 88 my man, Robeye The Worthy, was simply too old for the necessary reaction speed, but there was no way I was going to start at the beginning again to find out! I tried various tactics, each sword (the attacking one, the defending one, the one in the middle), then I started bringing in another remote in to play as the second player - it enables a parrot to fly in and attack if you make a successful hit, giving a slight advantage, though repeatedly mashing buttons with one hand while at the same time trying to have a sword fight with the other, was certainly a challenge of dexterity! After days of attempts I somehow got the right timing and won the fight, but it was a major low point of the game that sealed my opinion. It's not that it was a terrible game, and once you understand the values of the few goods you trade, reach the top rank with free repair work on your fleet of ships, get a fleet of ships, tick off the tasks, it could be quite fun - I even pulled some late shifts, even an all-nighter at one point so I was clearly sucked into the world, but there were just too many irritations, tasks that took too long, and a growing sense of simply repeating the same few tasks over and over.

I grant that there is something enjoyable about being able to play a game one-handed (it didn't use the Nunchuk attachment so you could have a cup of tea or a sandwich in one hand, while controlling your ship with the other!), and I once ate a meal while playing, something I don't think I could say about any other game. But the motion controls didn't add much to the experience and once again I think of annoyances: the fact that if you leave a port it pushes you fast out into the sea, and if there's a reef, or rocks in the way you'll run right over them causing all kinds of damage! It's realistic in that food is used up over time and your crew grow restless and eventually mutinous if you don't do enough plundering, yet at the same time the other ships in your fleet will follow you blindly, running over rocks instead of steering their ships sensibly. I'm sure the greatest difficulty in a pirate Captain's life would have been dealing with people, a commodity with their own mind and short tempers, so it adds some internal threat to your plans that the crew need to be kept, if not happy, then merely miserable instead of mutinously angry! Early on I found it so hard to recruit new crew and they seemed to mutiny so often or get killed in battle that it was very demoralising, though once I got the hang of hopping into a port with the hope the bad apples would desert and the ship would go back to normal operations, or I was successful enough with countries I could recruit more easily, it became a much better experience.

It was a very gradual, if addictive game, which had the feeling of climbing a hill to get somewhere or make money, but when you get near the top it became much more enjoyable. But once you've beaten all the pirates, have a solid fleet and have taken on the majority of the tasks there isn't much reason to keep playing, though you can. One other flaw was it was almost impossible to actually lose the game, maybe a concession to 'modern' gamers? If you lose your ship you're picked up by someone else, if you're marooned on a desert island someone will come along and make you their Captain. The graphics reminded me of 'Age of Empires III,' colourful, bright, detailed, but it also reminds you there are much better resource management games you could be playing so it's hard to justify starting again (though I applaud the idea that everything you need to collect is reset in a new game so you can replay without feeling you know where everything is). The bottom line is that it's very old-fashioned, and not in a good way, it didn't succeed in updating the format to give you a greater sense of control and options - 'mouse'-controlled strategy games could be ideal for the console, as shown by how great 'Star Trek Conquest' was, but Sid's 'Pirates!' didn't cut it, me hearties.

**

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild

Switch, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild (2017) game

Like most games in the 'Zelda' series come review time, it's difficult to know where to start, even more so for this entry since it's the first truly revolutionary game since arguably 'Ocarina of Time,' the first one in 3D. And yet I do feel conflicted about the fact it is at the same time one of the greatest, yet also very different to the traditions of one of the greatest Nintendo dynasties ever made, nor does it come without its issues and problems. It is undeniable in my eyes that this is a great game - it's a new way to play and has so many breaks with those traditions that it could have been unrecognisable, and yet it also stays very true in many ways. A game series has to develop in new directions or it would remain too similar to past experiences, especially when those who love a series have played so many iterations of it, and that creates the danger that you'll merely be redoing the same game or story with updated graphics, something innovator Nintendo is loathe to do, although they've become a lot less stringent over the years. Most of the 3D 'Zelda' titles have aped 'Ocarina' to a great degree, unsurprising since that was such an incredible new direction for the series, bringing its style and adventure into a more realistic approach and displaying a scale that was unprecedented at the time when 3D games were only just becoming the norm, from the tiniest bugs scurrying in the dust, to great mountains you could scale and a world map that truly felt like a world. And yet there were still limitations...

'Breath of The Wild' casts off almost all limitations, that's the first thing you come to realise: from the expertly choreographed first view of the world outside the cave in which you awake, approaching the cave mouth to see the distant image of a volcano rising out of the horizon across a vast landscape stretching away, to the moment you glide off the Plateau into lands unknown with practically all the main abilities thrust upon you, it's an awe-inspiring cornucopia of options staggering in its breadth. For the first time in a game, certainly a fully-3D, immersive environment where you're down at ground level, I felt the true call of adventure and complete freedom to tackle the world as I saw fit. It really is staggering - you have this immense world, so big that it stretches into the distant beyond and you can go in any direction, do whatever you like. The natural rules of progression so ingrained in 'Zelda' where you have a little training, earn your sword and shield, complete a simple first dungeon, are rewarded with another item of some kind and then have a tempered freedom, let out into the wider world to find out where you're meant to head next, are cast aside in favour of giving you all the skills in the training area and then pushing you off a cliff, literally! There's still an advised direction to go, but do you head right off for the stable past the Duelling Peaks, keeping strictly to the paths that are the equivalent of roads in this world, or do you indulge your curiosity and begin to edge out a little, do a little exploring in one direction or another: the choice is yours.

As is traditional with the series you only start with three hearts so you're very weak. This is compounded by the rags of clothing you wear which have next to no defensive value at all, so you soon find your first encounter with monsters in the big, wide world teaches you a healthy sense of respect that would have been almost unheard of in past 'Zelda,' especially for a veteran of the series who instantly recognises the majority of creatures, knows how to defeat them and has no difficulty in doing so. Enemy AI is one of the major overhauls here: they no longer simply rush at you when you come within their sphere of detection, but seemingly have lives of their own, whether it's Moblins chasing after some of the local wildlife, or sleeping round their campfire leaving their weapons open for the cautious thief to pilfer, they are proper denizens of this world that turns a mere mowing through an area as it used to be, into a truly tactical battle, especially in the early part of the game when you have so little health or strength. Even one of these little Bokoblins can be a worthy opponent to your low-level state and that, compounded with the vast freedom and scale of the lands, gives you a much stronger sense of threat and reward than a simple monster fight has any right to! Then we come to the next in a line of discomfiting or strange new ways that litter this game: breakable weapons.

I don't think that's strange on its own, I believe as far back as 'Wind Waker' you could pick up enemy weapons, though I don't recall whether they broke up after use, you just couldn't store them in your inventory. Here, you can pick up just about anything lying around, be it a tree branch, a ladle, pitchfork, broom, or, more sensibly, actual weapons of war! They cause different levels of damage and naturally the better equipment is more hard to find than the average bat or mallet. But there's nothing to stop you from getting some of the best weaponry in the game early on if you're willing to sneak about and explore - nothing except your own extreme puniness. It can be quite irritating early on to find that something you've discovered, whether it was stuck in the ground or hidden in a treasure chest, will only last so long before it shatters, it really takes some getting used to after the old ways of gaining a great sword from the start and occasional other weaponry that marks the notches of progress. It's a real culture shock to find you don't get to keep what you pick up in that regard, be it hand weapons, shields or bows. And to begin with you're hampered by having few storage slots for these things so you're constantly worried about running out of fighting tools at the wrong moment. Eventually you come to see the world is stashed full of weaponry and you don't have to look far for one if you need it, plus you're never without some form of attack as even if you break everything in your armoury you have an inexhaustible supply of Ancient bombs at your disposal in both round and square varieties.

Even the shape of these two explosives is relevant and becomes key to dealing with certain puzzles or situations - at first you're restricted by the time it takes for your bomb stash to reset until you can chuck another, but this delay and level of power is one of many things that can be upgraded so there remain the shadows of 'Zeldas' past and that age-old upgrade path, it's just less of a focus than it used to be, nor is it essential. For example, you could, if wished, head straight to Hyrule Castle, without explanation or learning anything, and make it all the way to the final confrontation with Ganon. It would be punishingly difficult and painstaking to get through the grounds and past all the high-powered enemies surrounding the area, and you wouldn't be a jot of use if you did reach him, either, but the fact you could do that if you chose is another example of the astonishing structure of this new way to play 'Zelda.' You could also do the complete opposite and 'live' in that world, merely enjoying the thrill of exploration and almost boundless lands that are open to you. This true sense of adventure is the greatest I've ever felt in a game: a level of complete freedom insofar as you can survive, there are no physical barriers to progression, indeed there isn't a great deal of progression itself, that 'impediment' to freedom has been removed in favour of an open world mentality that is unparalleled in its freedoms.

 At the same time, removing a strong sense of progression is one of the negative marks against it. It's not that it's a bad decision, just a very different mindset, and while it's incredible to be able to simply exist in this fully realised world, bursting with delights, puzzles, flora and fauna of all description, there is something to be said for the satisfaction of seeing somewhere or something you can't yet reach and then earning the right to it, moving the story along. In that sense it's about as far from 'Zeldas' past as can be and I would say is one of the weakest elements, if it can be called weak when in reality it's simply a stylistic choice - would it have been fine for Nintendo to release yet another entry that apes 'Ocarina' with a few new items, maybe the odd new race, and shinier graphics? Yes, but they chose to be daring with one of their most important game series' and I strongly applaud their desire to innovate instead of sitting on past laurels. Open worlds aren't a new thing - perhaps the oldest fully-3D example I played was 'Spider-Man 2' on GameCube in which you had the entirety of New York as your playground, modelled from the ground up to the tallest skyscrapers, and within which you could take on any petty crime or challenge in any order whenever you wanted, or simply enjoy swinging and climbing, being Spider-Man. But the technical limitations of the machine meant as strong a concept as it was, it would become repetitive sooner or later and as in 'BOTW' the story could be progressed any time of choosing which had the disadvantage of making it less integral to the experience as a whole.

The same issue exists here where the narrative drive is severely lessened, relying mostly on little modular sections where you take on a mission to defeat and free a mechanical monstrosity in the form of a giant animal in the four corners of the land. There are forgotten memories to be recovered, of a century ago from whence you came, slumbering in peaceful ignorance until you awake at the start of the game. The sense of being tied to a time period many years before isn't as strong because of this lack of reliance on story to carry the game, you’re very much in the now, unlike the dual time periods of ‘Ocarina,’ so while it has the flavour of 'Zelda' it doesn't have the strength and power story gives. But it's not something to complain about when you're having so much fun simply roaming the land, I just noticed the absence of a strong driving narrative. Also, because the world is so huge, the little bits of story that do exist are largely lost in the overwhelming scale. It's as if they created the environment first and populated it with all kinds of creatures and tasks, then added a story afterwards. But there's always going to be some kind of criticism of a 'Zelda' game simply because they're so accomplished in sound, vision and immersion that any inconsistency will stand out and no game can be perfect. The previous title, 'Skyward Sword' on Wii, garnered much criticism for being shorter than expected, and having too little land mass as you flew from island to island in the sky - again, they were attempting to do something different and it was less successful (in terms of engagement, I don't know about financially), but with 'BOTW' you can tell they listened to the complaints and acted accordingly. In this case it’s less of a story, more of a living, breathing, immersive world.

You couldn't get a much vaster environment to explore, nor a more grounded, physical experience. I suspect you could probably fit every other game in the series within the land mass of this Hyrule, which is to say how truly huge the place is, impressively humongous. It would take literally hours to circumnavigate the entire world, travelling at the very edge and in terms of game hours there's never been a longer 'Zelda.' Simultaneously the biggest in the series, yet also the most bite-sized with 100+ mini dungeons rather than eight full-size ones. I wish it kept track of game time because I'd love to know how long I spent there: it took a good four months to reach a point where I felt I was ready to effectively end it by defeating Ganon, even though, as in past 'Zeldas' you can always go back and finish collecting the collectables. It was meant to be my Christmas game, though 'SSX3' overran through the festive period so I didn't give my full attention to this at first, which is an irony considering I could have started this on day one of my holiday, played it all day, every day, and it still would have lasted for many weeks after. As it was, I spent more time on this than any other pursuit in the months after, racking up many hours a week because it was simply so much fun to explore and there was so much to uncover and achieve. And yet, while being the vastest example of the series by some magnitude, it's also one of the most accessible since there is so little structure it’s easy to pop back in for a few minutes just to explore one little copse or climb this hill, do that mini dungeon, take on this enemy camp... Or you can settle in for the long haul and spend hours in one sitting.

There’s so much to do it can be overwhelming: you're given side quests by the inhabitants of populated areas which you can then tackle when convenient, they're added to a list you can peruse from your options screen, and typically for Nintendo, things are expertly laid out. Never before has it been so easy to keep track of so much: inventory, map, quests, even a compendium of things you've snapped with your Smartph... sorry, Ancient tablet. At first that's yet another overwhelming aspect of the whole experience and appears needlessly complicated: game, herbs, minerals, insects... it's all too much, gone are simpler times when all you needed to pick up were rupees, hearts and ammo. Now you have a whole subset of options with which to make potions and meals. Just the act of cooking often requires fire which you can make from striking a flint with a metal object... Then there's the temperature of your environment, the sound level you're making (that icon foxed me to begin with - it looked like a heart monitor!). Never before has a 'Zelda' game had such a level of complexity and it does take a mentality shift. Nintendo have come up trumps with presentation and key to everything is the world map (or maps now, since the environment is so massive you have to unlock each lengthy swathe separately!), with the great boon of being able to set markers and symbols to denote various things or simply highlight a location you want to visit way off in the distance: maybe you’ve spotted the smoke of a fire, the light of a mini dungeon's entrance, a place of habitation, ruins, who knows until you get there!

Then there's the greatest part of the game which is a true game-changer and which I haven't even mentioned yet: the simple ability to climb just about any surface. It's almost ridiculous to mention it, you wouldn't think rock-climbing would ever be likely to become an integral part of the 'Zelda' experience, yet it is. Right from the moment I first walked out of the cave and found myself sticking to the trunk of a tree or the wall of the cliff and discovered I could climb it was a huge revelation: in the past all you could ascend were vines or certain fences, put there for the intrepid to discover and explore, but now to be able to clamber any surface... It's truly liberating in the implications: 'Zelda' was all about preventing you from reaching certain areas until later on when you'd earned the right, you could come back and exercise this newfound freedom, but this game gives you that right off the bat which means an entirely new way of doing and being came into existence that's hard to grasp. It's not simply the size and scope of the land, it's how you can interact with it that changes everything and is the single greatest part of the game in my eyes. Sensibly, there have to be some restrictions, completely unbridled freedom isn't necessarily as enjoyable as when you want something but can't have it. In this case you're held back by your stamina meter which allows you a limited amount of energy to run or climb and when depleted will mean you drop like a stone or can barely walk. It's a good system because it cleverly allows you so much latitude while also (early on), meaning you have to be cunning and plan out what you want to do and where to climb.

 The other impediment is the weather itself which plays a significant part in this world - the rain is the killer and one of the most frustrating things of all because as soon as it starts pattering down you know you'll barely get your own height up before sliding back down. You can see what the weather's going to be for the next few minutes, but I still found it incredibly annoying to have my exploration curtailed by a change in the weather. But it does add to the realism, whether that be snowstorms in the wintry mountains or the oncoming lightning storm where your metallic weapons act like lightning rods. Wooden items can burst into flame if you're in a hot place so even the marshalling of your inventory becomes a tactical exercise, impressively. Back to the climbing: the only limit to this skill are the apparently ultra smooth surfaces of Ancient architecture that don't allow any grip whatsoever, but this niggle is essential to the puzzles encountered in the mini dungeons. What is less acceptable is that when you do end up at the far reaches of the continent, as they say, your way is sometimes barred by an invisible wall and a message that you can't go any further. This was a bit of a clanger as Nintendo are usually so good at ensuring a sense of fairness in their created worlds and this seemed like a technical issue where they couldn't come up with a better solution so simply slapped down an artificial barrier. Some areas are bordered by sheer drops into the void which somehow seems more acceptable and I can understand they needed to have some way of ending the land and don't know what solution would have been best, but it is a bit of a cop-out, more creativity needed.

It is only one little annoyance or discordant note in proceedings, but it's surprisingly not the only one. There are, shock horror, little technical issues that crop up: the worst is slow-down where you're fighting some of the larger enemies such as big Moblins, the game stuttering and juddering occasionally, a real surprise in a first-party title from such a perfectionist company using such a powerful console, if understandable considering what they were able to pull off with it. There's also noticeable pop-up of creatures and items as you get closer. Neither of these really affect enjoyment, but they did stand out as rare examples of problems within such an incredible achievement. Something else very surprising, not so much an issue as another choice that goes against every 'Zelda' ever: there isn't a single proper dungeon! It's almost inconceivable that you don't get a big, brain-busting puzzle and skills challenge, a standard component of the series, but again, can you simply do another forest-themed dungeon, or fire, or water, or whatever? It's the same issue the platform genre suffered from: you can't just keep churning out the same environments and yet it's tough to come up with a new theme that's as enjoyable to play as the well-worn natural ones. So they didn't bother and instead you have tens and tens of mini dungeons (they call Shrines), that either dot the landscape, are hidden away, or can be activated by doing certain things. It's yet another aspect that takes some adjustment to your mindset.

The closest we get to a traditional dungeon are the mechanical beasts that were once protectors of Hyrule but were turned by Ganon's evil machinations. Even these aren't anywhere near the size of proper dungeons of old, though they have those same kind of large environmental puzzles and a boss fight at the end, followed by an additional heart container as reward. No, the closest we get is Hyrule Castle itself, a maze-like collection of rooms and corridors on multiple levels, full of monsters to fight and Ganon waiting at the top. There are treasure chests, but no more maps and compasses to collect, no more finding the essential object of the dungeon, and the boss battles I found rather easy. Even Ganon himself was shockingly easy to defeat as long as you had plenty of food to replenish hearts with, I beat him on my first or second attempt. Weirdly, the actual 'low level' combats with single or groups of monsters in the game world were tougher, specifically the Lynels, half-zebra, half-lion beasts with hulking weaponry which took many attempts to defeat, by far the toughest thing in the game to take on. This only adds to the impression that the world itself was the main focus and the story and it's Big Bad were almost an afterthought, which is another very strange direction for the series. You could almost view it in two ways, as a 'Zelda' game and as a generic adventure game. It has all the lore and traditional trappings the series always had, yet it's almost more of a platformer in the sense that the joy of movement and physical freedom, and collecting, too, is paramount compared to story and character and I do wonder how much replay value it will have, especially with sequel ‘Tears of The Kingdom’ taking place in the same game world.

Yet another weird aspect that stands out compared with previous 'Zelda' is the addition of the Ancient technology, a way of justifying and incorporating something more akin to sci-fi than fantasy. There's no reason why not and it certainly means you can do all kinds of things that would have been out of place before, at the same time it is strange for Link to be carrying around what amounts to an iPad, to face robot machines, yet also allows for a new aesthetic to proceedings. I wouldn't even say it's out of place, it's just very... different. Still, so much is the same or an enhancement of the same you can't be too put out. While it would have been more involving to have a new generation Water Temple that fries the brain, dealing with one or two mini-puzzles is fine. It's an odd juxtaposition to have such a gargantuan and complex world and yet the dungeoneering side of things be so relatively simplistic, but I suppose you can't have everything. It's also unsettling that you're not able to swim underwater (I was anticipating this being the special gift I’d earn defeating the Zora beast rather than a useful, if relatively disappointing, temporary heart recovery and extension upon death), and so frustrating you instantly drown if you fall into water when your stamina meter is empty, but you have to have some restrictions or there'd be no threat. Another missing piece is that there are no caves as 'Zelda' veterans know them: you might have a cleft in a rock or a small enclave hidden by breakable boulders, but there aren't any true underground sections where you venture down into the earth. Perhaps this was another stylistic choice (I know the sequel features the addition of an elaborate underground system), and they preferred players to be above ground taking in the sights and sounds of this living place.

It's hard to describe the sensation of having so much opportunity to interact. For example, ever since 'Ocarina' with its few straggled trees I imagined what it would be like to have actual forests of 3D trees rather than walled areas with texture-mapped faux-trees. 'Majora's Mask' took it a bit further, but only with this game do we have proper forests, woods and copses, trees, bushes, leaves, plants. A real environment you can use to your advantage: climb a tree and you might find a bird's nest with eggs to take, climb the tallest and you can perch at the top and take the time to look around, search the horizon, find your way. For many trees you can swing an axe and chop it down, scattering any bounty to the ground. Use a sword and you'll blunt it, but choose the right tool for the job and it'll last longer, there's a real sense of... sense. Smash the resultant fallen trunk and you'll get bundles of wood with which you can start a fire. A fire allows you to skip to a different time of day which will change the environment or the weather or who's about. It all has its purpose. You can see the giant's shoulders upon which this game is standing, such as the day-night system pioneered in 'Ocarina' or the cycle of daily life the denizens of the world live out as in 'Majora' - every good 'Zelda' has elements from past iterations and this is no different except it's not reliant of standing on those shoulders any more, it's charting its own unique path.

You can ride a horse, not only that, you can 'store' up to five of them at the stables ready to be recalled from any stable visited, which is useful, although I found my preferred method of travel was on foot since you could root out everything that way and there wasn't so much you could do from the back of a horse. I wanted to traverse the landscape in any direction I chose, so horses, as lovely as it was to hark back to the old days, in this case even naming them, were a little redundant and I mostly stuck to myself since you can quickly warp to any activated dungeon or map tower. This also highlights another very unique aspect of the game: a true sense of being out in a wild landscape, isolated from everything. You can stand on the brow of a hill watching the sunset, bathing the horizon in a golden glow. You can perch serenely on a clifftop and see the sparkling ocean stretch away into the distance as clouds roll over, and the sun or moon crosses the sky. You can hear the wind whistling through the trees or over barren hills giving you goosebumps as you just stop and listen in lonely, far-off places, a genuinely haunting and beautiful experience at times. This is why there isn't much actual music in the game. Music was one of the weaker parts, I'm used to strong themes for each area, but most of the time you are out in the wilds and unless you're riding a horse, you mostly hear natural sounds. This has the advantage of drawing you in even further, absorbing you into the environment, but it's also yet another aspect requiring adjustment from 'Zelda' preconceptions.

Even the title screen is devoid of that triumphal 'Zelda' theme and atmospheric intro sequence, which is a big omission as first impression. As is the lack of an instruction booklet, so often an anticipatory preamble to play, and an essential part of the buildup. There's not even a death counter to keep track of how many times you died. So many of these standard traditions are missing that it does take you out of it, at least at first, but you have a new learning to take on: what 'Zelda' can be. Those old games still exist and you can go back to them, but this is a different experience. My own path was unique as everyone's will be, that's the beauty of the game being so open. For me, once I'd completed the Plateau tasks I did follow the prescribed route up until I got to Kakariko Village, then I broke off and ended up heading round the coast for endless days discovering how to play the game, how I could play it, not needing to follow a specific direction, just relishing the exploration and immersion, never knowing what you’d find over the next hill. Eventually you realise it’s time to do something more constructive and maybe take on the odd side quest which soon mount up the more people you talk to. For me, things didn’t get going properly until I tackled a map tower and realised the ugly black world map with its blue lines wasn’t the finished article: reaching the top of these towers and activating them filled in your map of that area and that became my main impetus for some time giving me a clear focus to unlock every region of the map.

It wasn’t until I finally tackled my first mechanical beast, the Rito’s bird machine, that I really felt I was progressing, winning both my first heart container, increasing my meagre health by a third, along with the extremely useful ability to launch into the air on a column of thermal current which was a great boon for climbing. The reason it took so long for me to get a fourth heart was the fact you had to pray to idols in order to increase hearts or stamina which felt like a line I wasn’t comfortable crossing. It could be asked why I would be okay with killing in games, but not the seemingly innocuous exercise of prayer, but killing in a game isn’t like real life, no one dies, but in real life people do pray to idols which aren’t real, so you’re effectively doing the same in-game. I’m sure it doesn’t really matter all that much in the grand scheme of things, and there’s always been elements of the supernatural and magic in the series since these are a staple of the fantasy genre, so you’d always had witches and wizards, generally cartoonish versions of such, or the story of Hyrule’s creation by goddesses, but it turned a corner with ‘Skyward Sword’ where they had a demon living under the main town who’s really just a nice guy which I was also unhappy with, and this game took it the next step where it’s something you’re actually doing yourself, so my real issue is where it leads to - will they eventually have real occult practices involved? I would hope not, but Nintendo’s jealously guarded family image has been diluted in recent decades as they’ve sought wider appeal so I hope this isn’t a sign of the direction of travel, yet I can’t help but feel it is.

I didn’t take a definite stance on the practice of praying to these idols at first, in fact I wasn’t even sure that was how hearts and stamina were enhanced, though I guessed early on since that was the only thing I’d avoided. It did concern me to think this could be the first ‘Zelda’ I’d be denied from completing due to content, but I was enjoying the pleasure of exploration so much that even this didn’t deter me from getting as much as I could from the experience and though it made life tougher this in no way detracted from the experience - if anything it enhanced it for the caution needed to protect myself, increasing my involvement and investment in the game. And there were temporary fixes that could be applied through cooking which enabled more hearts or stamina, so I wasn’t completely devoid of assistance. The other hope came from one of the hints that popped up during the loading screen which told of a being known as the Granter of Boons who lived in the ‘far reaches of the continent’ and traded in just the heart containers and stamina vessels I needed, so I was always on the lookout for this guy, as you can imagine, assuming this meant the Hebra mountainous region as this was as far as you could go. But just the addition of that first new heart gave me a surprising boost having survived for so long on so little - it really did inject new heart! From there I gradually traversed all regions, gaining new clothing and items as I went.

The clothing side of the game was essential, while at first I’d assumed it was more of an aesthetic choice to give players more personal style in their attire (for example, you could go to a dye shop to change the colour), a bit like the tunics in ‘Ocarina,’ but they turned out to be more like the masks of ‘Majora’ which gave you new abilities. By far the most useful to me was the climbing gear, and towards the end of the game when I’d tracked down all three parts of the set which gave a boost to stamina I was given a new level of freedom, springing up sheer rock-faces like a monkey. The barbarian outfit was also useful for its enhanced attack in battle, and there were various other items of clothing or bonus wear that were fun to collect, but had less impact such as the monster masks which allowed you to waltz right by whatever type of monster’s face you were wearing. The glow-in-the-dark suit would have been useful for tackling one of the game’s little missions stumbled upon in my travels: an island of complete darkness in which you need to use fire to light your way (alas I found the glow suit after I’d already done this section!). These mini-adventures were among the best parts of the game, my favourite being the island where all your items are temporarily stripped away from you on alighting and you’re forced to survive like Robinson Crusoe, making do with anything you can scavenge. The time you’re supposed to scale the pinnacle of a hill in order to see a white bird is another memorable moment - I spent quite some time up there before I realised it wasn’t one of actual birds flying around that I was looking for, but a shape in the landscape…

And what about all that hunting? It adds a whole other level to your survival that you need to hunt animals for their meat and becomes like a mini-game in itself as you learn to creep up, improve your aim and accuracy, or try other tricks like swooping down from above, truly making you feel like an apex predator (until you meet a Lynel, of course… though I think the grizzly bear you stumble upon in some woods is quite a shock, too). Some animals will fight back when surprised which throws in a level of realism that impresses, and it’s the animal life that truly helps it feel like a real world. Not all creatures are conventional - sometimes you’ll find something downright weird, such as the blupees, glowing blue rabbity creatures that drop rupees whenever they’re shot (I couldn’t help thinking of Father Bloopy from ‘Maid Marian & Her Merry Men’ even though Prince John didn’t have much in common with a creature that gives money away…), or the Lord of The Mountain, a glowing blue horse that with enough stamina you can mount and tame, though you sadly can’t keep it as one of your horses - same with the Stalhorses that only come out at night. These are all freebies, you don’t buy them, but the money system is more in evidence despite the lack of rupees under every bush: most side quests or tasks earn you these rather than in the old days when it was all about heart pieces or special equipment. With seemingly no limit to how much you can earn (I hit 50,000 towards the end!), and easy money to be made by selling what you forage does mean there’s less care needed about how much you’ve got in the kitty, even if some items are expensive to buy. You guessed it: takes getting used to.

 It’s not all perfection, however. Along with the issues already highlighted I found, of all things, the controls had their difficulties. The revolutionary auto-jump pioneered in ‘Ocarina’ is gone (another element that makes it feel much more in the platform genre than ever before), and not since the Game Boy games do I recall having a jump button (Roc’s Feather). I miss rolling into trees to knock things out of them, an example of the physical and environmental developments of the past. There could be real irritation at times, such as in those moments you’re forced to flee from the great Hinox cyclops beasts that will chase after you and bat entire trees away as they come - it’s easy to run into a tree or wall in confusion and you’ll automatically grip it and start to climb. Not helpful. On occasion I’d be trying to escape a monster and in the confusion accidentally press down the analogue stick which makes you crouch and waddle slowly along at the most inopportune moment. Worst of all, it wasn’t possible to use both an inverted view for the third-person camera and standard for your first-person bow view, you had to stick with one or the other whether in third-person or first unless you changed options every time you wanted to fire an arrow, which was criminal. I had to learn to make do with the inverted bow view moving left to turn right and vice versa because I prefer a third-person camera view be inverted as if I’m turning it around Link. It made shooting more of a challenge… I grant that part of it is getting used to a different controller (this being only the second Switch game I’d played), but I was using the Pro Controller, not the Mini-Cons which are really far too small for anyone other than a child! I’m not used to feeling clumsy, extra-specially in a Nintendo game, usually another source of perfection for them, so it was most disconcerting, and there are a lot of controls to remember (too many times I took a screenshot when trying to view the map), not to mention frequently having to jump into the inventory to eat something, select a weapon or change clothing (something that can happen a lot depending on where you are - in the desert you must switch between warm clothes at night and cool ones for the daytime), but you do get used to such constant chopping and changing eventually. Another adjustment.

 Like any game, once you’re bedded in and understand its mechanics the experience takes off, and those of this game are continually, satisfyingly compelling: unlocking the map, which in turn gives you a better grasp of the landscape and locations, searching out the Korok seeds with which you increase your weapons, bow and shield stashes, solving the mini dungeons, including the optional secondary puzzles of how to get to the treasure chests, and hoovering up all manner of flora and fauna, equipment and clothing, you’re constantly barraged with things to do to the extent you almost don’t know where to turn, and that’s what gives it an addictive quality that stands apart from previous iterations. In a way it’s hard to know when to bring it to a close. For me I did all the side quests and Shrine quests except for the ones that required the Master Sword, the key weapon that would have been a great asset as the only unbreakable weapon in the game (as far as I’m aware - it’s such a huge world there must be many secrets I never even got close to), but which required more hearts than I could garner from defeating mechanical beasts in order to pull it from the stone. Indeed, if I had found myself barred from completing the game due to my stance towards the goddess statues I’d definitely have marked it down a point despite its undeniable qualities as a gaming revolution. As it was, I never could find the Granter of Boons despite a painstaking search all along the boundary cliff edges dropping down into abysses, from East to West, suspecting a cave might be hidden just over the edge, but to no avail and I had to take the chance of facing Ganon without the mythical blade - it turned out to be a fairly comfortable end, so I will give it full marks, for all its problems are by far outweighed with delights and great satisfaction, one of the most absorbing, rewarding and detailed adventures I’ve had in a long while. Yes, Zelda is overly precocious and emotional compared with the regal character we know from past titles, but I suppose she is a teenager… And I did have the nagging impression the game overstays its welcome eventually once you’ve got the measure of it, to the extent I felt almost overly generous in my rating. But ultimately I could imagine going back to find a few more Korok seeds (I finished with 472 and 113 dungeons), or simply to run around in that world since playing almost became a way of life. But I think I’ll leave it a while before I tackle ‘Tears of The Kingdom’…

*****

SSX3

 GameCube, SSX3 (2003) game

As if in sympathy with the distant past when Nintendo made the questionable decision to push back '1080º Snowboarding' for Europe because they didn't think people would buy it outside of the winter months, I found myself wanting a wintry game to play, the colder weather making it more immersive, to tide me over before I had to clear all decks to make way for the Christmas 'Zelda' - I thought a nice, quick downhill racer would plug a gap, but what I didn't realise was the sheer breadth of challenges and achievements that make this game a laster, to the extent I had to share the Christmas holidays between it and 'Zelda' when I much prefer to concentrate on one main game at a time. It's a tribute to it that I actively wanted to get back to finishing Peak 3 when I was playing the most accomplished 'Zelda' to its day, and became a nice surprise for me as what I would call a classic, not something that happens very often, especially with a game I'd never played before, and have no nostalgic ties to. I should say the snowboarding genre in general has always interested me ever since I carved out tracks in the original '1080º,' a great simulation-like racing game. I would also put 'Snowboard Kids,' the 'Mario Kart' of the mountains, in the upper bracket (more specifically for the wonderful multiplayer which I will take to my grave as one of the most special examples of shared gaming I've ever experienced), while the competition to the 'SSX' series on GameCube, '1080 Avalanche' was something of a disappointment (still a good game, but not enough of a leap a new machine should bring).

I'd never played any 'SSX' before, mainly because it struck me as being very trick-oriented and I'm quite a lazy racer: I don't want any distractions from the twitch-gaming of speeding along as fast as I can go, so no manual gears, no boosts and especially no tricks! Okay, so most racing games have accoutrements hanging on their use of some description whether that be a boost meter that needs filling as in 'Burnout' or weapons and other pickups, and I'm not too bothered about all that, but it really is the trick side of things where you have to learn complicated combos (much like in fighting games, a genre I'm none too keen on for the same reason), and bring on early-onset arthritis from all the uncomfortable finger-twisting and button-mashing. In this game's case it would have been a combination of NGC Magazine's positive review and an openness to explore more older games I had the slightest interest in pursuing, partly for the cheap cost, partly for filling in some historical gaps in knowledge, so I'd owned it a few years just for that time I was ready to try it out, and this was the time. It's strange that of the two 'Cube games I played in 2025, one was my biggest disappointment ('XIII'), and the other, this, was the biggest surprise - it's not that I didn't expect anything, but I was pretty sure it'd be a three-star game (good, competent, worth playing), at best, and potentially less if I didn't get on with the tricking side of it.

As predicted, it wasn't the 'pure' racer I would have preferred, with the adrenaline meter requiring filling in order to boost best speed ahead, an essential part of the racing, if not as important in every challenge or event. That was far from my biggest irritation, however: the interface was fine, though you could tell it was a third-party, cross-platform port, just a little clunky in places, the biggest example of this being when you try to save: Quit Game >Yes, Save progress before quitting >Yes, choose a Save file >Done, confirm name >Done, Would you like to overwrite? >Overwrite, Save complete >Continue... That's six buttons to save, not even counting hitting the pause to take you to the menu in the first place! The worst offence is that whenever you go a little way off the beaten track you're told you're OFF LIMITS and summarily returned to the 'proper' place. This gives the lie to it being an entire mountain for you to skip down freely and causes all kinds of frustration when you merely want to exercise your freedom during the search for collectable snowflakes dotted about the landscape and you're constantly told off for exploring! Then there are more minor issues such as the computer voice saying "M-comm" every time you hit the Start button to choose options from the pause menu. It's not necessary and while it may sound pedantic and irritable, when you're redoing a challenge over and over and have to keep restarting you really don't need any extra irritation!

These were among my bigger gripes, but right from the off I was annoyed by the music (quickly turned it over to the ambient sounds of the mountain, much more serene and realistic), and especially the obnoxious characters spouting inane dialogue - you could say it's an age thing, but I wouldn't have thought any better of them twenty-odd years ago when it came out! Again, I turned speech down to 0, but then when you do win and a rival has something to say, you miss the dialogue because there are no subtitles. Even the way characters start off (other than in races where they're eager to leap ahead), it's from a sitting position as if they can't be bothered (I know, I know - if they were standing on the board they'd start to slide downhill, but it didn't help!), and then there's the issue of no trick tutorial so you have to work out what Indys, Ollys and Umphreys (or whatever), are by experimentation of trial and error - again, it's laziness from me, but that's the kind of thing I expected from the game. My guess is that this would be designed to appeal to those with an actual interest in the extreme sport itself (or who'd played the previous titles in the series), not merely a console race enthusiast like me, so you could say it's fairly advanced, with an expectation players will know the ropes. In that case you'd already be well aware of what tricks are called and what's needed to pull them off, but for someone that doesn't, it wasn't very accessible - the same can be said for the 'realism' of having to visit the Lodge, situated on a specific track on each Peak, in order to alter your character, upgrade stats, buy stuff and see Career Highlights goals. It is more realistic to have to travel somewhere to do stuff like that, but it would've made more sense to have it available from the menu.

I will give it credit for its scope and sense of progression, there's a nice RPG element to things where you can pay to upgrade various aspects of your boarder (though the visual side was limited - my character was Mac Fraser and I tried to make him look like Kensuke Kimachi from '1080º,' but couldn't get closer than a similar hat and jacket, but in the wrong colours), and improve your chances in events using money you've earned with tricks and victories, and while I thought it'd be a fairly short game to whizz through, much like '1080' and 'SK' were, there's a wealth of things to keep you occupied. Oddly, the racing part was never my favourite, opponents aren't that difficult to take on once you know the tracks reasonably well and the only challenge is in the boss races when someone throws down the gauntlet - the final race on Peak 3 for example, 'All Peak Race' (a bit misleading since it's only the first two Peaks), can take almost half an hour to get down, and if you lose you have to do it all again, not to mention trying to beat the time to achieve a Gold Medal. Medals are yet another way in which the lifespan is extended: at time of writing I've only managed a 94% completion with one more Freestyle event in which to achieve Gold ('Kickdoubt' - seems impossible to get the 750,000 points or above you need), and five Career Highlights left undone (mini challenges like holding a Handplant for so many seconds, for example). But beyond that there are even Platinum Medals to be won (not that I have the patience and dedication for that - I wouldn't even have realised they went to Platinum except I won one out of the blue!).

In keeping with the 'realism' I mentioned before, there isn't much fanfare when you do beat a Challenge or achieve a Highlight, the onscreen details merely change to an ordinary Freeride and nothing appears onscreen to emphasise you'd succeeded at something, which was quite strange when the tone is so often celebratory with fireworks exploding around you and money racking up. Freeride was actually one of the more pleasing parts of the game, roaming the mountainside in search of routes and shortcuts, and most importantly the snowflakes placed around, some requiring real thought and experimentation since they're just out of reach or up on some line you have no idea how to get to. I found that quite rewarding, especially as you tick off the total on each section, whether it be searching forensically every last anomaly, or stumbling upon the missing snowflake entirely unexpectedly - I spent hours on 'Kickdoubt' (again!), in the caves of Session point 5 where I believed the last snowflake in the level was going to be hidden in the collapsible stalactites hanging from the rocky ceiling, smashed by intense speed and precise control... only to try another time and find it was on the last ledge high above, just before the caves! The satisfaction of ticking these things off was a large part of the attraction of the game, partly because many snowflakes were deceptively easy to spot, making you think it an achievable goal.

The other favoured part of the experience were a number of the Challenges which ranged from slaloming between flags on the track, to the difficult stringing together of named tricks before time runs out. The latter was so tough, but again, so satisfying once success came and all these things eventually bumped the score up for me. It helped that the mountain is attractive, even beautiful at times with much varied terrain and weather effects, the ability to jump to various spots of each section using the Session option, lots of secret routes and dramatic falls or environmental effects, although, much like the hyped avalanches of the latter '1080,' they didn't have all that much bearing most of the time - small and occasional, always in the same place and with little ill effect, you simply ride them down or get pushed over, but I suppose that was all they could really do. It took some time, but the mountain did eventually begin to unfold to me and by Peak 2 I was loving it. It may be that there was just too much to do at the beginning, it takes time to learn the ropes and where to go because although Off Limits happen far too often, there's still a sizeable playable area to speed down. I liked that it had a hardcore sentiment that didn't kowtow to casual gaming, you had to put some work in and it does make me wonder if there's anything similar on Switch that could obviously break out of the technical limitations of that time to provide the definitive snowboarding or mountain experience in general.

Seeing the stats for each section of each Peak and gradually beating each of them was greatly satisfying and the worst things you had to do were probably the most pleasing to have achieved, which gives me hope I may keep going back until I've finally got that ridiculously tough last Gold Medal and the final Career Highlights. It's a game that stood worthy of being my Christmas game regardless of 'Zelda,' which is high praise indeed - it helps that racing is one of my favourite genres, but as noted, the actual racing side of it was rarely that integral or satisfying, nor did I ever get to try the multiplayer which looked pretty comprehensive, so I'm sure if I was regularly playing with others as I did when this was released it would have been a regular contender in the disc drive. Even the fact that many of the Challenges you could discover on a Freeride, depicted by a column of coloured light, would turn a different colour once you'd completed them to show the same Challenge now had a tougher variation, was a pleasing progression, and while I expect 'Zelda' to last a good few months into the year, this might be an ideal accompaniment any time I want a bash at aiming for 100% completion or Platinum medals.

****

Retrogaming Review of The Year 2025

 Retrogaming Review of The Year 2025

The Drive To Carry On
I thought my Amiga days were over, on the 1200 at least, as after 27 years the disk drive began to play up - it'd work for a while, but then stop reading disks, and if you've been playing an X-Com Battleship for the last hour only to be unable to save your progress, it rather takes the wind out of your sails, or the Elerium out of your propulsion system. But thanks to ebay I was able to get a replacement, although my problems didn't end there: the new drive didn't work at all until we worked out it was due to my Amiga being a French model so I had some scary times getting at the motherboard to be able to reach in and snip a copper wire which was preventing the new drive from doing its job. A simple solution, and it worked!

Switching It Up
The other big gaming development of 2025 was the addition to the console family of the original Nintendo Switch! For years I'd had it on the to-do list, but it was thanks to the release of Switch 2 I finally took the plunge into current gaming (they're still releasing games for the original model - technically it's still retrogaming unless I play something just released!). Specifically, it was the generosity of a work mate who upgraded to the new console and gave me his old one (thanks Sam!), so I had no excuse at last to jump into the recent Nintendo catalogue. How exciting! I also got a new gaming screen (Dell 22" widescreen with DVI, connecting through an HDMI-to-DVI adaptor), specifically to play Switch (and wished I'd got an even bigger one), as well as Wii, looking sharper than through my old fullscreen Dell FP2007 (which has started to cut out every so often, most inconveniently). Though I have ever more games I want to play and ever less time to devote to it, it wasn't a bad year for variety with at least a couple of games tackled on all systems: Amiga, N64, GameCube, Wii and Switch, an eventful year all told and one I look back on fondly on the gaming front.

Awards:
Surprise of The Year: SSX3
Disappointment of The Year: XIII
Toughest Nut: Magic Pockets

[Ratings reflect total, historical experience, not just the enjoyment level I got out of them this time.]


January - April: Mario Kart Wii (2008, Wii) - This took some serious work to achieve everything I wanted to do (and I still don't have every track won with the best rating), with the Ghost Time Trials taking up a lot of time and attempts, but I also had multiple multiplayer sessions which is what it's really all about. It's a truly great entry in the series, especially all the connection to the past with so many tracks from previous iterations brought back, but I haven't had quite the same joy as I had out of the last two home console versions with our Christmas holiday fun times and Boxing Day Championships of two decades ago, and while it's the best one-player version with so much to do, it's also not enough to quite make it on a par with the past. ****

January - December: UFO: Enemy Unknown (1993, Amiga 1200) - I thought this long-running tradition of now 23 years was at risk when my disk drive started playing up, I'd been having problems since before Christmas '24, but it still mostly worked, until it stopped, with me at 03/02/18 in game time, but fortunately, with a replacement drive things continued as normal. It wouldn't be a proper gaming year without this (though I do sometimes think about going to Cydonia and ending the game, it's just such a long tradition and hard to countenance not playing it any more, especially as it has a nice, calming effect and a sense of connecting to the past and an oasis of gradual satisfaction on a weekly basis). *****

January - March: Super Mario Galaxy 2 (2010, Wii) - Like 'MK Wii' this was a strong game, but didn't have quite the same impact on me as the golden oldies, though it gave a great challenge and kept me going well into the year in quest of all those stars. Sad there's no 'Galaxy 3,' but with Switch now on the roster perhaps 'Odyssey' will be in the not-too-distant future... ***

January - December: WSC Real 08 (2008, Wii) - Much like the real snooker calendar I took a break after the World Championship in May and rarely found myself going back where once I tried to keep the disc turning on a weekly basis, perhaps as other games demanded more completion. Multiplayer in January of a year ago and over the recent Christmas bookended the year, but being No. 1 in the world gave me less motivation to keep going, though I haven't yet maxed out all my stats and there's always the Pool career to take on eventually (not to mention the '09 version of the game!). The only notable thing was sort of getting my highest ever break of 151 since the computer opponent fouled his first shot and then I got a 147 (if foul points counted in a break, which I know they don't, but still a highest score!). ****

January - December: Wii Sports (2006, Wii) - Trying to be more regular (I was aiming for at least every couple of weeks, but it was actually still almost monthly a lot of the time), I did smash my PB on the PB (Personal Best/Punching Bag), going from 56 to 59 after years stuck at the previous best and not even getting close! I also revived my Bowling career and we'll see where that goes and if I can keep it up on a regular basis like the Boxing, which is good exercise, giving it more of a motivation. ***

March - April: Sleepwalker (1993, Amiga 1200) - Close to being awarded 3 stars, but for the technical issues at the end not allowing me to see the completion animation. I was surprised how satisfying it was to go back and complete this, looking nice, not too long, even with such a low score I'd still have to rate this as one of the more surprising games of the year since most others I either expected to be good, or not, and if not for a late entry by 'SSX3' this would have won that category. Nice to continue the recent tradition of an Amiga game at the start of Spring, too. **

April - May: XIII (2003, GameCube) - You shouldn't go far wrong with an FPS, especially on a system not blessed with a definitive example of the genre, but I found this to be awkward, linear and not very engaging, and while it had some occasional beauty (I always think of the leafy hedge maze and gardens towards the end), it wasn't enough to save it. **

May - June: Glover (1998, N64) - Another somewhat disappointing experience, a tough one (this would've had a shot at my new category of Toughest Nut if not for the arthritis-inducing 'Magic Pockets'), and one to keep me trying, but I was never really sold on it - puzzle games have never been a big draw and despite this being as much a platformer, it was a bit awkward and annoying, nor was it enough to merely continue the N64 Summer game tradition of recent years, I expected more from it. **

June - July: Magic Pockets (1991, Amiga 1200) - Now this was hard: a 2D platform game in the no saves style of yore, not even passwords to allow skipping past levels already completed, and unlike 'Aunt Arctic Adventure' of the other year it didn't even have infinite continues to assist, it was pure trial and error, try after try, and so was very satisfying to ultimately complete. At the gorilla fight halfway through there was a time I thought I might not succeed, having spent a couple of hours to get to that point and then being beaten so often, but perseverance pays off and this game of childhood was yet another to finally bow before my belated attempt to crack it. But it was more pain than pleasure, hence the score. **

July - August: The Settlers (1993, Amiga 1200) - I had to get back to a classic, my favourite game of all, after a mix of mediocrity, but it did remind me of the fact it takes so long to get to the winning stage even when the opposition has no chance of coming back, which is less interesting, and the unfortunate glitch of your castle eventually refusing to allow you to take anything out of it once you've got to a certain point in the game (I'm not sure this is due to me giving all opponents maximum stats on everything and myself minimum, it's a theory I'll have to test out sometime as I don't remember that happening in the distant past when I used to play more conventionally), so it's far from perfect, but the visuals, sounds, politeness of it all... well, that is perfect and still stands as my favourite game of all time! *****

August - September: Burnout Paradise Remastered (2020, Switch) - Could have been described as a disappointment since expectations were high, 'Burnout 2' probably my all-round best game on 'Cube and I'd never played another title in the series, while also being my first exciting delve into Switch territory. Which is not to say it's a bad game - it's huge with tons to do (plus a bonus island of more stuff!), but with omission of the integral multiplayer (few years have passed without some 'B2' in that regard), and trying to find everything and work out how to do certain things towards the end it was starting to feel like a chore, but its vast world and countless vehicles, not to mention the exhilaration of whipping about on bikes, made this the best 'disappointment' I could have hoped for this year: a good, solid experience that somewhat showed me what to expect from Switch (I say somewhat as it was a remastered port from earlier systems). ***

October: Operation Winback (1999, N64) - Yet another game I wasn't thrilled with, which is a shame because it's one that had been on my radar since the earliest days of N64 Magazine as a worthwhile one to try out. Took me years to get a copy at a reasonable price, but while there's a good deal of replay value thanks to scoring, I didn't enjoy it's Third-Person Shooting enough to want to go back, not in the near future, at least, and while I was fulfilling another recent tradition of an October N64 game (to commemorate my console's 'birthday,' the month I first got it back in 1999), it wasn't up to others on the system and at this stage I was thinking ahead about trying to clear the decks for the biggest Christmas 'Zelda' ever. **

November - December: SSX3 (2003, GameCube) - Strange that my two 'Cube titles this year turned out to be the biggest disappointment and the biggest surprise! I fancied a racing game so I could plough through quickly before Christmas and devote the festive season to my Christmas 'Zelda,' and that didn't work out, but while I initially had some irritation, this snowboarding game exceeded expectations and once I really got into it, grew on me to the point I realised I really wanted to get back to it to find those last snowflakes or win those races, beat those times and scores, the longevity appealing, the difficulty curve well designed, and while it hung around I found great satisfaction in a number of the challenges within that required repeated effort to beat, turning this from a merely good experience to great, no better expressed than in tearing me away from 'Zelda' on occasion because I wanted to finish those last bits and pieces! And I still didn't do everything by year's end so I suspect it'll be like last year's companionship of 'Mario Galaxy' and 'Mario Kart' together seeing me well into the new year. ****

December: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild (2017, Switch) - It's Christmas. It's 'Zelda.' It's the inevitable Christmas 'Zelda,' one of my major gaming traditions since 2019. But this was... different. Disconcertingly so in many ways (constantly breaking weapons and equipment, no strong theme music, slight control issues), but oh! The sense of going off on an actual adventure is unparalleled: it's like the barriers to progression have been lifted and rather than follow a dedicated story through, slowly building access to various parts of the world and unlocking things through the acquisition of items, you're practically given everything at the start and pushed out into a living, breathing world where you can spend hours simply 'seeing what's over the next hill' or 'I just need to try and follow this coast round a bit further'! It's beautiful, it's vast (still some noticeable pop-up, technical limitations haven't been entirely superceded!), but it's too early to tell whether this will be up with my favourites of the series simply because there isn't that sense of clear progression, there don't seem to be dungeons other than one-puzzle mini versions all in the same theme or style. But you can climb almost anything, leap off cliffs with a Paraglider, the enemies are much tougher and cleverer, it doesn't kowtow to the mores of casual gaming: you literally take on what you feel comfortable with and learn, like in the real world. Biggest complaint is that there aren't enough hours in the day to satisfy the craving for exploration. And yet, at the same time after a few hours you can start to feel jaded since you're not necessarily accomplishing anything, and the map is an ugly black thing with blue lines, and... like I said, it's too early to judge because I've already learnt how to fill in the proper map, like 'Zelda' past, so there's still much to be discovered. I'm sure I'll have much more to say in my full review, but that won't be for some time... ****

Honourable mentions: New year multiplayer 'MarioKart: Double Dash' (*****), 'Burnout 2' (*****), and both starting and ending the year with 'WSCR '08' (****), not to mention a little 'Wii Sports Resort,' namely Frisbee and Golf (only having one Wii Motion Plus meant anything other than turn-based games were off the menu), but otherwise there wasn't much time for side plays, it was all big, serious gaming for me.


Next Year - Still found some Amiga games that worked on the 1200 after the no-go of the 1500 and had a nice even split with my various machines, so in 2026 I'd like to:

- Bring the Amiga 500 down...?

- Play 'James Pond II: Robocod' for my Spring Amiga game

- Maybe do 'Lego Star Wars' for my late nights after matches during the Snooker World Championship

- Keep the tradition of my Summer N64 game going with either 'Wave Race 64,' 'Lylat Wars,' 'Extreme G' or 'Wipeout 64'

- Try something else on Switch (ooh, too many to choose from!), and Wii ('Pirates,' 'Bully,' 'De Blob'?)

- Get back to Game Boy ('Link's Awakening' or 'Wario Land,' perhaps)

- Return to 'Metroid Prime 2' for 'Cube now I can do 60Hz games again with my new screen, before I get to 'MP4' on Switch (perhaps paired with 'Link's Awakening' for Christmas if I ever get to solder a new battery in the cartridge!)

Happy New Year!

Operation Winback

 N64, Operation Winback (1999) game

Another N64 game done and dusted. This was one of those titles I'd always been interested in playing, but could never find, or find for a reasonable price (even on ebay), and like 'Rocket: Robot On Wheels,' remained unattainable until recent years (although I still haven't got the latter in my collection!). I could say it's very much of its time, but the drab greys and browns that make up most of the visuals had certainly been proved unnecessary by such examples as 'Perfect Dark' and 'The World Is Not Enough' in the First Person Shooter genre, but even in Third Person Action games such as 'Hybrid Heaven' they achieved a better graphical range, so 'OW' didn't have an excuse, coming in the middle of the console's life. It actually reminded me of certain sections in 'Ocarina of Time' - whenever you're creeping around maze-like areas that are walled off. Being compared to a 'Zelda' game would ordinarily be a great compliment, but those parts were a little lacklustre, dull and showing the limitations of the machine, so it's really not a positive comparison, though I can say it was made up of similarly pleasantly chunky figures and objects. The music, too, was entirely unmemorable and basic, though like 'Zelda' it does include the nice touch of context sensitivity - most of the time it's quite quiet and restrained, but when health is depleted it starts to heat up and become quite energetic to match the rising intensity, so that was a point in its favour.

There's not much to be said for the story, such as it is, which is really only an excuse to stitch the various levels together and provide a brief rest from the action, generally scenes of your character meeting up with his various teammates only to decide to split up again. I'm sure it was more to do with the pain of having to program AI allies, which this game being released when it was, would have still been a technical challenge, although I think 'Turok: Rage Wars' came out that same year, and while that was geared entirely to bot battles in dedicated arenas, you'd think a good coding team might have been able to handle at least one coop member - I'd suggest including 2-player cooperative play, but the graphics were muddy enough as it was that shrinking the size of the play screen down to half would only exacerbate the problem. The way these team members moved in and out of the picture made me highly suspicious that someone was going to be revealed as a traitor, so that wasn't a very big surprise (after all, you can't rely entirely on your main villain to be the threat if he's called 'Cecile'! What kind of threatening name is that, or did they do it for a joke?). But yes, it made very little sense for all these various squad members to be working individually when they could simply storm through as a team.

Sense in story and weak graphical clout were only a couple of issues that stood out for me. Another was the decision to make it a third-person perspective in the first place as I'm sure it would have been a much more accessible experience had it been seen through the eyes of Jean-Luc Cougar, your dramatically-named hero character (who looked a little like Chris Pine). For one thing the bad camera wouldn't have been an issue, but here, you can often find yourself fighting it or running into scenery - the unique control scheme where you hold R-Trigger for auto-aim, then hammer A to fire, was a bit clumsy (and it's clear why the auto-aim is so integral since otherwise it's almost impossible to react quickly as your sight swings wildly, but also slowly, making you vulnerable), the camera not always being in the right place for you to see just round the corner where your auto-aim has locked on - the result is you can be firing at an enemy you can't actually see and only know he's been dispatched by the auto-aim breaking off. You also can't adjust the camera once you've locked on, which is a frustration, and as for multiple targets... Well, you can have an assailant running at you whom is obviously the most dangerous and you want to shoot, but the auto-aim has locked onto someone else. You can switch between targets, but it's not always responsive enough, and in the panic of a charging foe it often appears easier to simply disconnect, turn tail and run. But here's another problem, albeit one that makes the game more realistic: you're much more vulnerable from behind, sometimes being killed with one shot.

The game really doesn't want you to run away because if you do the camera can sometimes go haywire as you're trying to adjust to your new direction and I had many a death through camera malfunction which would easily have been avoided if the game had been played through Cougar's eyes. There's almost no point to the third-person style, it's not like you can lay flat on the floor or crawl to present a smaller target (you can crouch and roll, but that's it), nor can you climb even small obstacles at waist height! It's gaming convention, I know, that simple actions aren't possible because they'll upset the carefully laid traps and advancement (similarly only certain parts of the environment can be shot), and the game is very linear with little in the way of offshoots, just the occasional blind alley or room you don't absolutely have to enter, though usually these places have extra equipment such as ammo, torch or medical kit. But the real reason for the perspective is so they could include irritating sections where you have to time a roll to duck under a laser beam to progress. This was yet another vast irritation to me since they generally come in multiples and you have to get each timing just right to get past them. If you touch one it's instant death! Yes, another gaming convention, I understand, but it's fully frustrating. The only balm is that they generally give you a Checkpoint just before so you don't have to travel a long level only for instant death because you mistimed a roll.

In that sense the game was actually pretty easy. It's mostly a question of taking cover, then leaning or jumping out to pump the bad guys with bullets, take cover again and repeat. Levels tend to be fairly short until you get near the end when there are thirty or forty minute jobs, though part of that is working out where the enemies are going to attack, and once you know all the patterns it's not too difficult. Medical kits that replenish health are scattered around, not liberally, but enough to make it far from a daunting prospect to reach the end of most levels. There is a bit of tactical play regarding these kits, since unlike ammo you can't pick them up and take them with you, you either use it there and then, or if you think you don't need it quite yet, memorise where you left it and go back for it, though it's a risk since once you're through a Checkpoint you can't go back unless you restart the level from the beginning. I will say as another positive, your man is well animated, even if it weirdly cuts off when you climb a ladder for example, though perhaps that was to do with loading the next section? But once you've got used to the clunky control method you do feel some liberation, crouching, walking crouched, popping up to hit an enemy, rolling, peering round corners. But it still irks you can't do simple things like climb up onto a crate.

Things are kept fairly simple when it comes to your arsenal: you have your basic pistol, a shotgun and an automatic. You can also find the occasional silenced pistol, though I didn't find it of much value since you don't get any replacement ammo and can burn through it quickly. Equally, the rocket launcher was a nice touch, but cumbersome to use and you often find yourself being exposed for longer as you go through the operation of firing and watching the shell shoot off. Your pistol has unlimited ammo, so that's not very realistic, but if it had then the game would have been much, much tougher (you get extra points for completing a level with only the pistol or without using any medical kits). Most of the time it's almost easier to use the pistol, even though it's less powerful (and has a shorter range - it's important to reserve some machine gun ammo in case you do have enemies in the distance), because you know exactly how many bullets you have and how long it'll take to reload - the annoying thing about reloading the larger weapons especially is that it takes time for the animation to play out and if you get hit in the meantime that prevents you reloading, so you can be desperately trying to fill your gun with bullets only to keep getting shot, which is when you feel the best course is to simply run away, the camera fights you, then you get shot in the back and die! Most enemies are fairly simple propositions to deal with, but the scary ones are the guys with knives who come charging at you and often one swipe will kill so there are moments of high tension. Also the gun emplacements which just rattle away, obliterating health when all you're trying to do is work out how to get past them, but it adds to the puzzle element.

The environments aren't exactly varied, hence the complaint about it all being rather brown or grey, but there is enough difference between them to mark them out as separate areas, be that wading through sewers or dodging between crates in warehouses. It even starts outside as your goal is to traverse various parts of this building that's been taken over by terrorists. I can't say I really took in the story, you're acting on behalf of the government to stop these terrorists taking control of some satellite or something, but narrative isn't its strong point. Actually I'm not sure what is its strong point! I do have a slight nostalgia as I think back through all those tricky bits I had to redo over and over, and if it wasn't for that the game would have been very short since my total playing time, adding up all the levels, came to a paltry 5 hours, 56 minutes, but that doesn't take into account the endless numbers of attempts - I was able to complete it in the space of one month so there was probably more like twenty-forty actual hours of playing time. But I can't say I really enjoyed it until the last two or three levels when it became a lot more involved, challenging and varied. If the whole game had been like that I'd have added another star to the score, but although I was playing it on Normal difficulty, most of the levels weren't too much of a challenge, very repetitive and a stop-start style of gameplay rather than flowing. Part of that was getting used to the controls, admittedly, and I'm not judging it based on modern ideals, just comparing it to other titles on the machine which showed what was possible.

It could be glitchy, occasionally crashing, although part of the reason seemed to be it didn't like the Expansion Pak being in the N64 (which isn't so good seeing as that came out the same year!), so for the first time in I don't know how many years I had to replace the Jumper Pak which I never thought I'd be doing! It could still crash on occasion even after that, but wasn't as unreliable. Sometimes it was just my own stupidity that caused me pause: when I first picked up a 'magazine' I went into my inventory to see it, forgetting ammunition comes in magazines and it wasn't some glossy read! The inventory could have been a greater part of the game, too, but I rarely checked it or used what was there. You have a torch which can be useful in dark areas, so that's another nice touch, and plastic explosives that can be laid and then shot or activated to explode, but it was a bit fiddly so I rarely used it. You unlock 'Max Power Mode' on completion which enables all weapons with infinite ammo from the start, though it would only serve to make the game even easier, and you also unlock characters for multiplayer. That's something which may have been fun back in the day when there were three or four of us playing N64 games regularly - I fired it up just to see what it was like. Unfortunately, as you'd expect judging by the rest of the game, there aren't any computer controlled bots to play against, it's humans only, and it really is a bit hard to see when the screen's quartered (2-4 players are possible), so I don't know how well it would have gone down when I think back to how even bright, colourful third-person combat games like 'Jet Force Gemini' and 'DK64' weren't very popular. You can't even save to cartridge but are required to have a Controller Pak, the mark of technical inefficiency in a game.

In terms of the end of the game, beating the turncoat was fairly easy, though Cecile was a little more of a challenge. The dialogue throughout is all a bit melodramatic with added swearing and blasphemy as if they thought that made the game 'grown-up.' But there isn't any blood or gore so it doesn't fit with the visual tone. Then again it's best to leave aside the 'qualities' of the story which is all told in text rather than actual speech. Interestingly there are little speech samples as enemies shout or grunt so it's not like there's no human speech at all. I imagine the game was inspired by such titles of the late-90s as 'Metal Gear Solid' with its weird boss characters to fight and an emphasis on sneaking around, and it made me wonder why more software companies didn't use 'Goldeneye' as their model? It seems obvious, but it shows how much talent and expertise were behind games such as that classic. It also made me think of 'Splinter Cell' which came a few short years later on GameCube, another third-person action game of creeping around with the same style of 'music,' though more options in the physical department. I hasten to add that 'OW' isn't a bad game, though its initials do sum up a lot of feelings inspired by it. It's the sort of thing I can imagine going back in ten years or so to complete on Hard, but isn't something I'd particularly look forward to playing again. Which is a shame because it did go sit in my mind as something well worth exploring for the right price - perhaps I'd have enjoyed it more closer to its time, but even then 'PD' and 'TWINE' put it to shame.

**